People & Places

Last year in this space we kind of goofed on Don Bailey, who is now a senior citizen but posed nude on his carpet at the age of 40 and has used the resultant painting to sell his wares ever since. You've seen the signs, where Bailey is propped on his side, wearing a slightly suggestive smile and little else. While giving Bailey his props for having the courage to bare all in his quest to sell rugs, we also noted that the ads were kind of "creepy," and that Bailey looked like a "pasty version of Hugh Beaumont from Leave It to Beaver" in the ads. We figured that Bailey either suffered from a chronic skin condition or hailed from Britain. Well, it looks like our frank comments spurred Bailey to action. He recently renovated the signs using the original portrait, and it seems that the pastiness wasn't a product of Bailey himself -- it was the work of the elements. To our amazement the new, nonweatherworn portrait confirms Bailey's contention that he was a stud in his time. He had a trim, fit physique and wasn't pasty in the least. In fact Bailey was actually reminiscent of the man who'd inspired the ad, Burt Reynolds, back when Reynolds was America's leading male sex symbol. Bailey, we're sorry we ever doubted ye.